Nightmare visions of that day detonated in her memory
. All the awful flashes that woke her screaming at least twice a month now rushed back with blinding intensity, like the white-hot face of the summer sun. But the images were not the worst. Worst were broken songs that now crashed down like mammoth waves from a hell-spawned storm. Every song she’d ever heard or sung, every note and every lyric, coalesced into an incredible crescendo.
Amazing grace, how sweet the . . . As I walked out in the streets of Laredo . . . that saved a wretch like me . . . Got shot in the breast and I am dying today . . .
With a cry of pain and horror, she clapped her hands to her ears, barely feeling the old rifle strike her bad knee as it dropped from her grasp.
When we are called to part . . . with proudly waving starry flags and hearts that knew no fear . . .it gives us inward pain . . . he came to fight for freedom’s rights . . . and hope to meet again . . . a Union volunteer . . .
A hand clamped down hard on her shoulder, shattering the spell. Hamby used his leg to sweep her feet out from under her. Anna grunted as her fall forced the air out of her lungs.
He straddled her in no time, screaming, “Son of a bitch
! It’s my goddamned lucky day!”
His left eye stared vacantly across the clearing, but in the right she saw his hellish glee
.
Dear God, he had her, even though she’d had a gun
! He had her once again!
The echo of her own words accused her
,
I’ll kill them before I let them lay a hand on me again.
She’d made that promise to Quinn Ryan; she had made it to herself. Yet now, shock drained the strength from her limbs, and terror stole away her screams like a hurricane force wind. Last, errant snatches of old lyrics skittered through her consciousness like hungry mice.
Met her on the mountain . . . stabbed her with my knife . . . hang down your head, Tom Dooley . . .
Remembered pain tore at her belly. She retched with it, flooding her mouth with bitter bile.
Hamby’s breath reeked of alcohol and something more unpleasant, like decaying meat. “Scare you, don’t I?” he asked
.
As if he couldn’t feel her shaking
. As if he couldn’t imagine what the sight of the knife in his right hand brought back.
“You got plenty to be scared of . . . little bitch.” His words hissed through his clenched and crooked teeth.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Señor Delgado crumpled on the ground. His blood stained a patch of snow that remained in the cooler shadow of her cabin. She turned her head, trying to see if he might still be alive. The old man was motionless as clay.
Hamby’s fingers ground into her shoulder.
“You think I don’t recognize you, don’t you?” Hamby roared. “But I do.”
She said nothing but only trembled as his fingers moved to slide along a lock of blond that had escaped her braid to hang beside her cheek
. She heard the sharp, almost sexual intake of his breath.
“Take a lot for me to forget a head a hair like yours
. That’ll look real good in my collection. Coulda been enjoyin’ it all along, if I hadn’t been in such a goddamn hurry.” He shook his head, as if disgusted by his lack of care. “Sloppy work on my part, lettin’ you out here all this time like some kind of medicine squaw. You been livin’ on some borrowed years, girl. But don’t you worry. I’ll do you right this time. Judge Cameron still wants you dead. But I’ll do you for my own reasons, slow and easy like, once we have our fun.”
She tried to tell him it wasn’t going to be like that, that she would fight him off, that she wouldn’t let him hurt her
. But the paralysis that had let him catch her hadn’t eased, not even enough to let her speak. Self-disgust rode over her. If she would let him do this, she did not deserve to live.
“Seems to me that cabin would be a mite more comf’table.” Hamby began to yank her to her feet, but her body’s limpness worked against him
. He swore and stuck his knife into his belt.
The moment the blade disappeared from sight, Anna felt a jolt of strength course through her veins
. Harnessing her panic, she screamed and jerked away.
Hamby fumbled for his holstered gun, and Anna thought, almost gratefully, that he would have to shoot her now, a quicker death than he’d intended.
Before he could raise the revolver, however, Notion burst out of the woods, snarling and barking. The dog exploded toward the outlaw and leapt on him, clearly intent on tearing out the man’s throat.
But Hamby had unholstered the gun, and Anna heard another man’s shout in the distance.
“Ned? What th
e
”
Like a morning fog, her inertia had burned off and coordination had returned
. Anna raced toward the spot where a chestnut mare stood tied to the thick branch of a live oak tree. The horse pranced nervously with the commotion and rolled its eyes. Anna slowed her approach and spoke soothing words. The animal sidestepped away and threw back its head, obviously unnerved by Notion’s growls and Hamby’s screams.
“Come away from this, girl,” Anna repeated
. “I’ll take you where it’s quiet.”
The horse’s dark gaze shifted to Anna’s face, and finally grew still enough for Anna to untie and mount. The familiar star Anna had glimpsed on the mare’s forehead convinced her this was Quinn’s horse, the same one she had taken from him back in Mud Wasp years ago.
Anna scrambled aboard the animal’s back and hoped like hell this would work out better than the last time she had stolen Ryan’s mare.
She dug her heels into the horse’s side, just before she heard the gunfire erupting in her wake.
* * *
Although the judge had seen to it the parlor was tastefully decorated with delicate dried flowers, the ceremony’s witnesses looked anything but festive.
Lucy cut her eyes toward the little Spanish señorita that had so long attended the judge’s needs. Lucy had no doubts about what sorts of needs the hussy had attended. Why, even if Lucy had been the innocent the judge imagined, she would have noticed how Elena’s nostrils flared each time the black-haired beauty glared at her. Repeatedly, the housekeeper fisted her small hands, wadding a lace handkerchief into a ball no larger than a dove’s egg.
Miss Rathbone stood in attendance beside Elena
. The older woman wore her usual dour countenance, along with her stodgiest gray dress and bonnet, in honor of the occasion. Lucy imagined Miss Rathbone didn’t know whether to be relieved about her upcoming departure or horrified at her charge’s utter lack of scruples.
Judge Clancy’s baritone voice rumbled like an ancient waterfall over the sacred words
. The words that would soon wed Lucy to Ward Cameron. The words that would give Lucy’s bastard child his name.
A haze of nausea swirled around her, weakening her knees
. What would Cameron do once he found out? By her reckoning, she was nearly four months pregnant. Even Lucifer’s accountants couldn’t explain a September child out of their April wedding date. Damn all the delays! She’d be lucky if he didn’t realize she was pregnant right away. With her petite frame, she couldn’t hide much in the way of baby, especially not stripped of her clothing.
Words surfaced in the stream of Clancy’s droning
. “. . . Do you, Lucille Maddox Worthington, take this man . . .”
Did she
? Ward Cameron seemed prosperous enough, solicitous enough, respectful enough of her family background to serve as a solution to her problems, but did she truly
take him
? Could she take him across from her at breakfast every morning, beside her in bed every night? And most importantly, could she take him
inside
her, knowing that it was handsome David’s child that grew within her womb?
“Lucy
? Lucy?” Her attention focused on Judge Clancy’s fleshy face, now touched with a kind smile.
It must be time to answer now
. Time to step off this dreadful precipice. Lucy glanced around the small room, first at Ward, who looked uncomfortable and slightly nervous, then toward Miss Rathbone, who nodded stiffly, once, and lastly toward Elena, who raised her chin and smiled victoriously. The two women must think she would back out now. Miss Rathbone’s nod confused Lucy, but the housekeeper’s Spanish haughtiness made anger burn inside her chest. Drawing herself to her full height, a mere five feet, Lucy enunciated firmly, “Yes, I do.”
She let Judge Clancy’s words blend back together, let them go from drone to roar, let them merge into that other roaring in her head
. Within moments, the roaring darkened into blackness, and she passed out, not knowing if Judge Clancy had yet pronounced her and Ward Cameron man and wife.
* * *
“
Manos arriba!
” the man screamed hoarsely.
Quinn jerked his hands into the air, not certain he’d correctly understood the orders, but positive about the gesture the man made with his gun
. One thing for damned sure, he must be dead tired to let the Mexican catch him unawares like this.
The short, dark-haired man rattled off another stream of staccato Spanish, but this time Quinn couldn’t guess his meaning
. Behind the man stood a dappled gray horse he was leading. On its back, an olive-skinned woman and her child huddled together, their brown eyes huge with fear. All three of the Mexicans were dressed in coarsely woven brown wool. In addition, the woman had a worn blue and dove serape wrapped around her buxom figure.
Quinn swore to himself
. He’d let the whole clan sneak up on him. He’d never imagined that a few hours’ walk could have deafened him.
Even as he thought it, he knew that wasn’t right
. He’d been thinking about Anna, the way her voice had sounded, the way that she’d felt in his arms, when the Mexican appeared as if from nowhere.
“I don’t understand!” he shouted at his captor
. “
No comprende
.”
He hoped like hell that worked
. He’d just about exhausted his entire store of Spanish with those two words.
The woman helped the boy down and then slid off the horse
. Pushing her child behind her, she stepped forward, then said something to the man Ryan took to be her husband. She gestured toward Quinn and shook her head, fanning out her long black hair. The Mexican man peered at Quinn more closely, then slowly lowered the barrel of his rifle.
“He very sorry,” the woman offered
. Smallpox scars marred her otherwise attractive features. “He thought you very bad
hombre
, ride with outlaw.”
“Outlaw?” Alarm coursed through Quinn’s limbs
. “You’ve seen outlaws lately?”
The last rays of the dying sun touched her eyes with flame
. “
Si, señor.
We try to make a
rancho
, but these bad men, they keep coming. They drive away our cattle, all our horses but this one. We go before they kill us, too.”
“My name is Quinn Ryan
. I’m the sheriff of Copper Ridge. Who are they? It’s important that I know so I can stop them.”
To her credit, she didn’t laugh, though she looked doubtful
. At last she shrugged, as if she’d decided no harm could come of naming the outlaw to an unarmed, unhorsed man who didn’t even have a star to support the claim that he upheld the law.
“I have heard men call him Hamby,” she said
. “I call him
el diablo
. The devil, in your words.”
“That he is
. You’re wise to take your family where it’s safer,” Quinn said. “You’ve seen him recently?”
“This very morning
. He came, and the Apache with him held a knife up to my son so we would talk.”
“What did he want from you?”
“To know about a woman, a
curandera
of the canyon. An American, like you.”
“Anna . . .” Quinn groaned, feeling the fine hair rise behind his neck
. He’d been so quick to dismiss Anna’s tale two weeks before. It sounded as if she’d been right after all. And now, when she returned to her cabin, Hamby would be there . . . waiting for her. Terror gripped Quinn’s chest with ice-cold talons. Sweet Jesus, he had sent her home to die.
He glanced once more at the western sky, as if his need might coax the sun aloft
. But even if the light were with him, he was many hours away. Many hours from Anna, who might be dead already.
If she were lucky . .
. He closed his eyes against the lurid flashes of what Hamby and his men might do to her if she yet lived. With sickening detail, he recalled the way that Hamby swung those little scalps and laughed.
El diablo
, this woman had called him, but Quinn suspected his atrocities would make Old Scratch blush with shame.
The woman grasped his arm
. “You know Señorita Anna?”
Quinn nodded, too miserable to waste words on an answer.